


Already there

by seiden_spinner



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Day trips are a thing, Established Relationship, I'd say it qualifies as fluff, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 08:16:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13994229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seiden_spinner/pseuds/seiden_spinner
Summary: Just a day trip to god knows where.





	Already there

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anyakindheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anyakindheart/gifts).



They go on a day trip. It has Amy’s name on it; day trips are something she created, and even though she is not here anymore, the spirit of it, the _Amyness_ of the whole thing definitely is. And that is how Amy lives and will live forever.

It’s one of those not so springish mid-March days when the wind is cold, the air is damp and there is no sun in the sky but they go anyway.

‘So… How is this supposed to go?’ Simon asks, somewhat unsure, as they walk down the platform. ‘You have a place in mind?’

‘No,’ Kieren replies, somewhat nonchalant, as the wind tousles his hair. ‘Pick a number. From one to, say, thirteen.’

‘I don’t get it. Why?’

‘But a number, Simon,’ Kieren groans softly. ‘Will you please? This is key.’ 

‘Twelve then,’ he says with a crooked smile, which earns him an unimpressed eyeroll. ‘What? You wanted a number, I gave it to you.’

‘You did, Mr. Ex-Disciple, you certainly did,’ Kieren says pointedly, which earns him an equally unimpressed eyebrow-raising.

They get tickets to the sixth – twelve divided by the two of them – station from Roarton. The train carriage is empty save the several elder women, who shift nervously as they enter the carriage and take their seats. Maybe that’s the reason why Simon’s hand lands on Kieren’s slightly trembling one as soon as the train moves – a gesture of reassurance. Not that Kieren needs it, not really, he’s okay, he’s fine, but that’s nice anyway.

Watching the fields and stations and distant houses from the window, Kieren thinks of walls. The walls Simon used to surround himself with. His silence in response to Kieren’s questions ( _‘So why did you go to the city?’, ‘Have you had the bullet removed?’, ‘Are you okay?’_ ), the T-shirts he used to sleep in, the fact that Kieren had never actually seen him changing clothes – all of those were walls and they seemed impregnable. 

And then, brick by brick, they yielded. This is how Kieren knows what happened in the city back then. This is how he knows what happened to the bullet ( _‘Have you had it removed?’ ‘No. Never going to.’ ‘Why? Do you enjoy carrying a piece of lead inside?’ ‘A piece of lead meant for you? Yeah, I do.’_ ) This is how he knows the topography of Simon’s back and the way some sort of body memory shiver runs across it when he touches the spot between where Neurotriptyline goes and where the spinal wound begins.

When they arrive to the Station Six, they don’t go to the town. Instead they head for the local fields – vast and cold and damp, not that it matters. At some point it starts raining – small, more like water dust than actual rain – and Kieren pulls on the hood of Simon’s parka for him.

‘I don’t care if my hair gets wet, Kieren,’ the elder man mumbles, nevertheless fondly.

‘I do! You get that look when it’s wet…’

‘What look?’

‘You know,’ Kieren says with a shrug. ‘The lock-up-your-daughters one.’

‘Hmm,’ Simon hums, amused and in no way offended by the comparison, and then offers: ‘More like sons, though.’

‘Yeah, been there, done that. And that’s how we know that doesn’t really work.’

‘That’s because you’re special.’

‘That’s because I know how to pick locks, Simon.’

They wander under the rain, hands in their pockets, Kieren but a step ahead. Simon watches him and thinks about bogs and mires and dead poets and clover fields and snakes and saints. Which reminds him.

‘Tell me something,’ he says as he draws up with Kieren and catches his attention. Now that he started, he almost regrets it because what’s lying on his tongue is quite dumb and ill-timed, and yet he’s curious, so he continues: ‘Are you happy?’

Kieren raises his eyebrows and shoots him an are-you-bloody-serious glance.

‘What kind of question is that?’

‘But a ‘yes’ or ‘no’, Kieren,’ Simon says, all but sing-song. ‘Are you?’

‘I suppose so, yes,’ the younger man says after a pause, and adds gravely: ‘Why?’

‘You kissed me,’ Simon replies, point blank, trying hard to suppress an overjoyed and, no doubt, stupid grin.

'Yeah, that I did. So?'

‘I’m Irish.’

The silence falls; Kieren halts and stares at him in disbelief tinged subtly with fondness.

‘Jesus Christ, Simon’, he manages at last, suddenly flustered, and then turns on his heels and rushes forward through the rain.

Simon smiles, open and definitely stupid, and moves as well.

 _‘You’d better be happy, Kieren Walker,’_ Kieren hears in the soft whispering of the rain or maybe in the back of his head as he walks, his hands deep in his pockets, his chin in his scarf. _‘You have to be happy, I demand you to be happy! Because if you’re not, I’ll be so, soooo pissed, you can’t even start imagining how pissed I will be. And trust me, you don’t want that. So if you’re not there yet, you’d better start doing something about that right bloody now.’_

 _‘I think I am, Amy,’_ he thinks as he glances back to see Simon with his hood pulled off, his hair wet and atrocious, and his grin wide, walking several steps behind. _‘I think I’m already there.’_

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of love the whole 'kiss me, I'm Irish' thing, and at some point it hit me that there is a certain Irish man who deserves to be kissed. And that's how this thing was written x)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the reading!


End file.
